At the moment my feet touched the ground, I heard a hideous scream—a terrified, mind-breaking sound. With my concentration shattered, I landed in a heap. Couldn’t think about what had just happened. Couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t.

As I pushed to my feet, I felt a sting in both knees, a sharp pain in my left wrist, and a queer feeling of sticky air along my right side. Couldn’t think about that either.

I needed to be out in the open. The main house was probably stuffed with Yorick’s friends, so I couldn’t shelter there. But the beach? If I got to the beach and yelled for help, the Crowgard would hear me. Maybe even Conan and Cougar if they were hunting nearby. Someone would see me, would know what happened to me.

I ran and made rash promises to exercise more if I lived. Of course, if I died, exercising would be a moot point.

As I ran past the main house, following the path to the lakeside cabins and the beach beyond them, several things happened. A voice that sounded like Julian’s yelled “Vicki!”; tittering female screams, not the I’m-being-eaten kind of screams, came from the screened porch; and Swinn, waving a gun, fought his way between a couple of bushes and came at me.

I was in sight of the lakeside cabins, sure that Swinn was going to shoot me at any moment, when fog suddenly started playing hide-and-seek with the ground, with objects, with people.

“Caw!”

“Caw!” “Caw!” “Caw!”

Aggie and her friends? I hoped so.

The fog thinned, revealing the sand.

“Bitch!” Swinn’s voice, too close.

Sand would slow me down. So would the water unless I could get far enough out to be safe from bullets.

I changed course and ran for the dock. Was that sensible? Who knows? It’s what I did. Behind me, I heard Swinn yell; I heard a big splash. A gun went off. And someone started screaming.

I was almost at the dock when Yorick ran toward me, waving something shiny and yelling, “Come back here, Vicki! It’s all your fault! Come back here and fix this!”

I didn’t know what he was holding. I just knew I couldn’t let him get his hands on me.

Men with guns and other weapons behind me. Ahead of me? Something else.

The fog might have messed with my sense of distance, but it wasn’t the reason I ran to the end of the dock and kept running until I hit the water.

CHAPTER 74

Grimshaw

Watersday, Sumor 8

Spotting the smoke, Grimshaw slowed the cruiser. “I need to call this in.”

“I’ll call it in,” Julian said, plucking Grimshaw’s mobile phone out of the console. “We need to reach The Jumble.”

He glanced at Julian’s pale face and stepped on the gas. They weren’t more than a couple of minutes away, but a couple of minutes could make a difference in saving a victim or standing over a corpse.

“I don’t know what’s burning, but it’s on the farm track between Milfords’ orchards and The Jumble,” Julian said to whoever was on the other end of the phone. “If the wind picks up, the whole area could be in trouble.” He ended the call. “Volunteer fire department is on its way.”

The mobile phone rang. Julian answered. “Officer Grimshaw’s phone. Wait. I’ll put you on speaker.”

“Sir?” Osgood.

“We’ve already called the fire department to handle whatever is burning on the farm track, in case that’s what you wanted to tell me.”

A beat of silence. “No, sir. I called to tell you Captain Hargreaves is boiling mad. Seems two of the officers who came with him as backup let a fellow officer borrow their patrol car. The captain was mad enough about that since they didn’t tell him about it, but when he threatened them with disciplinary action, they admitted they loaned the car to Detective Swinn. That’s when he really got mad. He’s on his way back with, and I quote, reliable officers.”

“Tell Captain Hargreaves it’s likely that those officers owe the Bristol station a car,” Julian said.

“Why?” Osgood asked.

Grimshaw pulled to the shoulder near the game trail that they’d been using to reach the main house at The Jumble. “Because that’s probably what’s burning on the farm track.”

“Do I have to tell him?”

“I’m heading up to the main house with Julian Farrow. You can tell him that.”

Another beat of silence. “You should have backup. I’m on my way.”

Grimshaw hesitated, then thought, Either he has the stones for this work or he doesn’t. “The trail to reach the main house has been marked. If you don’t see us, get up to the main house and hold anyone who’s inside. You got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Julian ended the call and handed the mobile phone to Grimshaw, who tucked it in its spot on his belt as soon as he got out of the car.

“Damn,” Julian said softly as they started up the trail.

Fog swirled around them as they hurried toward the main house. Not a thick enveloping fog, but almost . . . flirtatious, veiling and revealing. Just enough that Grimshaw couldn’t see the ground, couldn’t see something that might trip him up enough that he’d sprain an ankle or wrench a knee—injuries not normally life-threatening, but either would leave him useless and vulnerable.

Once they reached the access road, they ran toward the main house but stopped, frozen, when they heard a hideous scream.

Grimshaw took a step toward the sound. Julian grabbed his arm.

“No,” Julian said. “We can’t go there.”

The look in Julian’s eyes. He’d seen it at the academy—and he’d seen it on the streets before they’d been assigned to different stations. “Are you seeing the real place or The Jumble as it was represented in the Murder game?”

“They’re the same now.” Julian shuddered, then headed for the main house. “They’re the same.”

Not good.

“Vicki!” Julian shouted once they reached the main house.

Female screams coming from the back of the house.

“Wait,” Grimshaw said as he pulled out his phone and called Osgood’s mobile phone.

“Almost there, sir,” Osgood said loudly. “I can see your car.”

“Don’t try to find me. Just get up to the main house and stay inside,” Grimshaw said. He ended the call and almost dropped the phone when Julian bolted, no longer able to wait. “Julian . . . Julian!”

But Julian was running toward the far side of the house, following only Mikhos knew what. So Grimshaw went around the other side. He wasn’t sure Swinn had brought Vicki DeVine to The Jumble. The man could have taken her farther down the farm track. Except . . . The damn fog. It was here and nowhere else.

He ran around the other side of the house. If Vicki was inside, he’d have to trust Osgood to deal with the situation as soon as the baby cop arrived. But he didn’t need to be an Intuit to have a bad feeling that Vicki DeVine was out here. Somewhere.

The fog around him cleared abruptly. That was the only reason he didn’t step on the body. Step in the body. Darren. Gutted. But not dead. Not yet.

He hesitated. Nothing he could do for the man, but it felt wrong to leave him alone in the fog where the predators waited. Then he heard a gunshot—and heard a man scream. That decided him. He ran to the back of the main house, heading for the dock.

Splashing, thrashing, screaming. He had a glimpse of Julian pulling something out of the water. Then the fog became a wall, cutting him off from everything except Vicki DeVine, running for the dock, and Yorick Dane holding something in his right hand and yelling, “Come back here, Vicki! It’s all your fault! Come back here and fix this!”

Yorick reached the land end of the dock just as Vicki ran right off the other end and hit the water.

“Dane!” Grimshaw shouted. “Put the weapon down, now.”

Dane started to turn.

“Drop the weapon or I’ll shoot.”

Dane looked over his shoulder, his expression full of smirky disbelief. “You going to shoot me in the back? Won’t look good on your record, Chief.”

“If I shoot you here, no one will ever find the body, so I can write up the report any way I please.”